Authorized know-how, like dealing medicine, thrives on getting youngsters hooked on the free pattern. At the least that’s what a whole lot of hours price of D.A.R.E. propaganda movies taught me. It’s why legislation college students acquired Lexis and Westlaw passwords earlier than their dorm rooms — it’s by no means too early to develop model loyalty. As 3Ls graduate into 1st-year associates and begin pulling all nighters on authorized analysis, they instinctively log into whichever system they realized in class.
However the brand new frontier in authorized tech is AI, and the arms race in authorized tech simply hit the quad.
Harvey, the buzziest vendor today, simply introduced partnerships with Stanford, UCLA, NYU, and Notre Dame. Notre Dame proudly declared itself “the primary” to combine Harvey into its school rooms, pretending the opposite colleges who’ve carried out the very same factor don’t exist and that Notre Dame’s contributions are magically extra necessary than some other establishment’s. School soccer season is so again!
From Synthetic Lawyer:
Or, as Harvey put it: ‘By making know-how a basic a part of legislation faculty training, these establishments are innovators in serving to put together the subsequent era of attorneys for careers the place know-how allows and helps extra of their work.’
That mentioned, this isn’t a Coke-vs-Pepsi battle the place you may hand out samples and name it a day. It’s extra like giving each legislation scholar a free Tesla and hoping none of them drive it straight right into a courthouse wall. How AI matches into the authorized trade workflow — each virtually and, extra importantly, ethically — remains to be up for grabs. Asking legislation college students to be check topics is an enormous deal and may have long-term ramifications for a way these things will get used.
Truthfully, it is a success even when all this accomplishes is instructing future attorneys to make use of legal-specific AI versus giving ChatGPT all of your consumer’s now discoverable info so it could possibly hallucinate up some pretend circumstances.
For the final couple years, the authorized tech press corps have requested distributors if they’d begin giving legislation college students free entry to AI instruments. And the solutions vary from flat refusals to hemming and hawing about “effectively, we’ll see.” AI is pricey and suppliers appeared unconvinced that the juice was well worth the squeeze. However tokens maintain getting cheaper and, apparently Harvey has determined free samples have crossed into good funding territory.
This now places the onus on Harvey’s rivals — each direct and not-exactly-direct — to get in on the youth market. Lexis and Westlaw can’t get caught sitting round whereas the brand new child on the block runs orientation week. They’ve been enjoying the lengthy con because the Clinton administration, giving freely hundreds of thousands in free scholar entry simply to verify no lawyer over 40 can file a quick with out a paid subscription. Now that the sphere of battle has superior to Lexis+ AI and CoCounsel, it’s not sufficient to hook college students on the bottom merchandise alone anymore… they should win hearts and minds for his or her premium choices.
As a result of each good bubble requires firms working up massive payments tussling over market share earlier than it bursts!
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Legislation and co-host of Pondering Like A Lawyer. Be at liberty to e mail any suggestions, questions, or feedback. Observe him on Twitter or Bluesky in case you’re concerned about legislation, politics, and a wholesome dose of faculty sports activities information. Joe additionally serves as a Managing Director at RPN Govt Search.
